Monday
Monday
Paul’s First Missionary Journey
The Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
Acts 13:2
Barnabas and Saul, with John Mark, were commissioned as missionaries by the leaders of the church in Antioch. At each of their future stopping places Luke records something of note. In Cyprus (Barnabas’s home) the proconsul himself believed. At Perga John Mark deserted them and went home. On arrival in Pisidian Antioch, as we know from his letter to the Galatians, Paul was suffering from a debilitating illness, perhaps malaria, which had damaged his eyesight. Yet here Paul and Barnabas took the radical step of turning to the Gentiles.
The missionaries now journeyed about a hundred miles southeast to Iconium, where large numbers of Jews and Gentiles believed. In Lystra, following the healing of a cripple, the superstitious crowd now tried to worship them, but Paul urged them to turn from their idolatry to the living God of creation. Next, the crowd turned against Paul, stoned him, and dragged him out of the city, thinking he was dead. Worship one moment and a lynching the next! Such is the fickleness of the crowd. But Paul revived, and the following morning his poor battered body began the sixty-mile trudge to Derbe, where large numbers again believed. Paul and Barnabas now retraced their steps, revisiting the churches they had planted and encouraging the young disciples. On arrival back in Syrian Antioch, they gathered the church together and “reported all that God had done through them” (14:27).
What was Paul’s missionary policy? As Roland Allen wrote in his famous book Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? “Nothing can alter or disguise the fact that St. Paul did leave behind him at his first visit complete churches.” On what foundations, then, did his indigenization policy rest? There were three. Firstly, Paul exhorted the new converts to “remain true to the faith” (v. 22). That is, there was a cluster of central truths that he calls “the faith” and that he had taught them. Secondly, Paul and Barnabas “appointed elders [plural] for them in each church” (v. 23). Thirdly, Paul and Barnabas committed them to the Lord, convinced that he was able to look after his own people. Thus the young churches had the apostles to teach them, pastors to shepherd them, and the Holy Spirit to guide and protect them. With this threefold provision the churches could safely be left.
For further reading: Acts 14:21–28